Bulk text messaging companies in Australia

Finding the right bulk SMS company requires you to compare competitors’ price, reliability, compliance, service related as well as customer service.

WholesaleSMS ranked as offering the best value when it comes to comparing all these features.

Number of bulk text messaging companies in Australia

In Australia, we are fortunate to have a number of good and reliable bulk sms companies that provide a range of features and services to cater for small, medium and large businesses. Such providers make your life easier by servicing your needs by offering a seamless platform system that make distribution of text messages efficient and effective. In most cases the only requirement is to provide the bulk provider with the database of customers or consumers or clients or employees that you wish to communication with.

The whole process from start to distribution to your target audience can be done in a matter of seconds or the longest would be minutes. It doesn’t matter whether the volume of sms is small say under 10,000sms per month or large such as 250,000+ over a month period. It is the way of the future in communicating in a friendly and efficient way through the use of mobile phone, web or any other mobile communication system available.

The list of bulk sms companies is long so the authors, who are experts in the sms field, narrowed down to those companies that could offer a range of features, reasonable charges with a track record of reliability. The list ended with the following bulk sms providers namely WholesaleSMS, SMSTech, SMS Central, ClickSend, Textit BurstSMS, SMS Broadcast; and DirectSMS.

A Bulk SMS Provider comparison table and site was produced so that you can compare one provider against the other before deciding on engaging one of these companies.

Finding the right bulk text messaging company

It takes quite some time, good research and, of course, experience to find the right bulk SMS company that would meet all your needs. Price is a major factor but not the sole reason. Features that will allow hundreds, thousands or many tens of thousands of SMS distributed at one time, customer service and assistance, gateway accessibility, reliability and security are all factors that need to be considered.

Over recent years many Australian companies are realising the great benefits sms are doing to their marketing or communication campaigns whether they be special deals, alerts, reminders or just plain updating on latest updates.

The first factor is to find a bulk sms company that does not require additional software to be downloaded or installed. Bulk providers should be totally web based and therefore rely on you have a web browser and access to an internet. That’s all!

By providing the selected bulk provider with the database of customers or clients or specific target audiences, they will be able to form groups of contacts so that when you want to send a text message all is required is to specify which target audiences you wish to deliver the message to. The provider has the platform and infrastructure to be able to send mass text messages in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

So what are the key features that you should be looking for in a bulk sms provider?

Features offered by bulk text messaging companies

In summary, what you need to research, understand and be fully aware of the companies features they have to offer like delivery service; price, web product, developer API customer service, reporting, emails to SMS and Spam compliance to name the most important ones.

Take delivery as the first feature. Although it will depend on your needs to distribute within Australia or not, it will be a factor as to whether the distributor has an onshore or Australian delivery service and the ability to distribute sms offshore to other places other than Australian. This can be supported by a global coverage dependent on the gateways systems available to the provider. In the Bulk SMS Comparison Table provided …………………………………. it can be seen that some companies have onshore and offshore delivery while some providers have provide optional delivery of such a service.

Another feature of importance is the ability of the bulk sms provider to offer a two-way service process. As an organisation wishing to send out messages, you need to know that the engaged provider can both distribute on mass text messages to specific groups of people efficiently but also, on your request, receive replies back through your email address. This means that you can view immediate the efficiency of the service and gauge the types of responses that result from the distribution of these text messages via mobile phones. Such analysis recording on an Excel spreadsheet, allows the provider and you to track delivery for ongoing review. This delivery reporting system will also show any bounces of messages.

The next feature of importance is the requirement that bulk sms providers have a Developer Application Programming Interface (API). This ensures they have a set of protocols and tools for building software and applications. A good API makes it easier to formulate the software and associated program which will assist the programmer. An API is usually a web-based system. These bulk SMS companies need to be able to offer and manage high speed connections which will allow them to ensure high volume text messages will be delivered within a short time frame.

Taking into account the range of features for mass SMS distribution, it was assessed by the authors of this comparison site, who are experts in the sms field (but no longer work in that area) that Bulk SMS Providers such as TextIt, SMSTech, WholesaleSMS, ClickSend, and SMS Broadcast present a good range of quality and practical features for use in mass distribution. The other competitors rate lower but should not be excluded as potentially good bulk providers. There are other qualities that need to be considered as will be outline further in this site.

Charges by bulk text messaging companies

The pricing factor is a major factor in the decision making process for a company or organisations wishing to engage the right bulk sms provider. The charges incurred are made on the basis of the number of sms distributed in a monthly periods. From a review of all major bulk distributors in Australia it was evaluated that the provider with the cheapest pricing schedule was WholesaleSMS. This was followed by SMSTech and ClickSend. DirectSMS provides a moderate costing structure and the most expensive company was TextIT. It was noted that SMS Central does not disclose any of their prices for sms distribution.

Price matching was one aspect only covered by WholesaleSMS. The other competitors did not match competitive prices which puts this company ahead of others. Payment by monthly plan was a feature either not available or optional when companies engaged bulk sms provider.

The pricing structure is based on the volume of sms distributed over a month period. The range of pricing depends on less than 10, 000 sms per month; less than 100000 sms per month; less than 250,000 sms per month ; and more than 250,000 sms over a month period. In the review done, low volumes of sms charges range from 7c/sms to 9c/message, indicating a 20% difference in charges. Larger numbers of around 100,000+ sms have pricing between 5.5c/sms to 8.1c/sms, a difference of 30%. On the largest volume of text messages distributed per month, the range of price begin at 4.7c/sms to 7.1c/sms, around a 30% price variation.

Since prices may change from time to time, it is advised to discuss the pricing and terms and conditions for mass distribution with each company.

Reliability and compliance of bulk text messaging companies

One of the critical features in ensuring a reliable and efficient bulk sms provider is to rate their set time of sms transmission from the time it was decided that a sms was required to the time it was distributed to the specific audience required. Such value is decided by the uptime whether it be less than 99% or between 99% to 99.99% or 100% with a service level agreement to ensure an overall assurance of distribution.

All provide a SMS platform that provides a web based system which does not require any new or different software which leads to ease and reliable knowledge and experience from a client perspective.

These bulk companies do cover an anti-SPAM policy and compliance requirements as well as their Privacy Policy. Such details are easily seen on their website in a friendly, easy to read and follow version.

In the review of these major bulk sms providers discussed, there is an indication that most of them do provide a good reliable service to clients and customers. It can be seen that Wholesale SMS, ClickSend, SMS Tech, SMS Central all rated 95 or more in a rating out of a 100.

Customer service of bulk text messaging companies

With any type of online service it is important to have a bulk sms provider who can provide support in times of need. Therefore, the authors considered customer service as one of the important selection criteria when reviewing the bulk sms offers.

It was seen that all the major bulk sms providers reviewed provided a phone support service, other than WholersaleSMS, during business hours. There is a dedicated contact number to discuss issues and matters related to text messaging issues. As stated above, all the providers investigated do offer delivery reports to show the effectiveness of penetration. They all do provide an email address for correspondence to occur and a promotional free trial to test the benefits of using sms. Free trials do vary ranging from 5 free sms to a maximum of 60 free sms.

A number of Australian and international organisations clients are displayed on the providers’ websites to show their satisfaction with the customer service provided. This can be viewed on the providers’ websites.

So when comparing customer support and help provided, it can be seen from the graph’s ratings below, that both SMS Central and DirectSMS have a very good level of service followed by ClickSend and BurstSMS. The others do offer a level of service but not of the same high standard as those bulk sms companies just mentioned.

About bulk text messaging companies comparison table

A Bulk SMS Provider Australia comparison site and table was developed as a result of the detailed required to be analysed by companies and people wishing to engage a good and reliable bulk sms company. It is not an easy task to decipher through a range of information between different websites. Therefore, this site has been developed for your benefit at no cost.

The authors of this site and table are experts in the area of text messaging but no longer work in this field. Therefore they are independent, not biased and offer a neutral position of these entire sms provider discussed in this site. These authors wanted to make your life easier in the selection process. If you do decide to use the site and engage a bulk sms provider from their link, then the authors will ask the engaged company to pay a commission.

Please be aware that the SMS providers may change their features and pricing without notice. If this is the case, please let the authors of this site know so that changes can be made as soon as possible.